Sexism in politics is nothing new when you're standing for election. But don't stand for election and it's almost as bad. Shockingly, David Cameron thought it acceptable to claim this week that my decision not to run for the Labour leadership was because my husband, Ed Balls, "stopped [me] from standing."

I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Ministers are like fraudsters in the fairy tale, telling gullible Liberal Democrat MPs about the beautiful progressive clothes that the emperor is wearing, if only they are clever enough and loyal enough to see them. And desperately, we have Liberal Democrats clinging to shreds of invisible cloth, reaching deep into their Liberal and Conservative history to pretend that they can be progressive now. They are claiming that Keynes might have backed the Budget. They are calling on Beveridge for support, kidding themselves that they can call on their history and that they are following in the footsteps of great liberal Conservatives like Winston Churchill, who supported the minimum wage, but the truth is that the emperor has no clothes.
The truth is that if you look at the detail, the Budget is nastier than any brought in by Margaret Thatcher. Instead of Churchill, Keynes or the founders of the welfare state, the Liberal Democrats have signed up, with the Right Honourable Member for Chingford and his Chancellor, to cut support for the poor. It is perhaps apt that in this week of World Cup disappointments, it was actually a footballer who got it right. In 2002, after England were defeated in the World Cup by Brazil, Gareth Southgate reflected ruefully on England's performance and said:
"We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead got Iain Duncan Smith."
That is the reality for the Liberal Democrats now. With all their high hopes, they have betrayed the poor and the vulnerable, whom they stood up to defend.
[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb) rose]
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I know he has a history of supporting people on low incomes and I do not know why he is betraying it now.

Cut is the Sure Start maternity allowance. Has [the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith] no idea at all that supporting a family and getting the children out of poverty when the babies are born can save money from the public purse for years to come? Instead, he wants to cut support from the babes in their mothers' arms. At least Margaret Thatcher had the grace to wait until the children were weaned before snatching their support.

She came recommended to me as someone who was very much a Labour person but also a very clever economist so I was very much looking forward to meeting her. And then this slip of a girl raced up at party conference and said 'I'm Yvette' and when I thought of all the experience she had had and all the brains that she had, it seemed to be impossible that someone so young was that person. She is very remarkable because she combines being very, very clever without any shred of arrogance which is quite unusual in a politician, I have to say. She also combines being very steely and determined but without being macho [...] She doesn't talk in a way that excludes people, so on the GMTV sofa, she can speak to people in a way that they understand.

She's very sharp analytically; she gets to the absolute core of an issue very quickly. Certainly, seeing her in action with officials, they know they going to have to be well-briefed. So she's a very clever person; a good operator and also a pretty decent human being which is important in politics and a bit rare.

I've been rather warming to Yvette Cooper over the last year or two. She was one of those new Labour women whom Tories loved to hate at first. I found her pretty irritating. There was something slightly cold and zombie-like in which she used the apparatchik-speak language of New Labour politics and never really seemed to engage with people. She seemed too much like an operative and not enough like a minister. But I've noticed her changing. She's relaxed. She's got funnier.